Kovarus Blog

Mind the Gap

February 17, 2015

There are many gaps among companies, organizations and people at all levels. A gap typically occurs when motivations for success differ and communication breaks down. This is common in IT departments, where the goals of IT aren’t always aligned with the goals from the lines of business. The solution could be (and should be) found in a solution known as IT as a Service, which is focused on designing, building, delivering and managing IT resources in a very different manner. The gap currently between IT and the business couldn’t be much wider for most companies. The IT department used to rule the technology roost when there was no other way to achieve innovative solutions. Business units had to accept the terms, price and solution offered by the IT department; a department of people who were revered and unquestioned.

Times have changed and a generation of well-versed, tech-savvy, device empowered employees has emerged within our companies. The reverence has turned to bitterness as the audience considers its options. Technology providers have seized this opportunity to sell their wares in a manner that makes IT services easily understood and consumable by anyone. As a result, their target audience is no longer the IT department but the business units that have been so dependent on IT in the past and that continue to own not only the business relationship but the capital budget. Falling by the wayside in these negotiations between IT service providers and business units are the important and proven aspects of managing the IT infrastructure (such as security, compliance, failover, backups, etc.). These are not top of mind for most business units, as they add little functional value. In fact, most of these risk-management practices are infrequently considered by the business units, and if they are considered, they are thought of as overhead.

It is imperative that a new IT department quickly emerges through a transformation process that has the qualities to compete with and embrace these technology service providers while optimizing the ‘overhead’, making it transparent. The most effective way to do this is to diverge operating models with a longer-term strategy of convergence to a single, streamlined, integrated IT delivery arm; that is, to create an environment that provides consumable IT resources as needed by the business. Operate it in such a way that allows you to manage to the resources in an agile way (whether using private, public or hybrid cloud offerings). Meanwhile, start the initiatives to increase the maturity and capability of the existing environments using a methodical execution plan that generates iterative successes.

The gap between IT and the business must be removed to allow IT to demonstrate its true business value to the company. Your company has huge investments in IT assets: people, processes and technology. Choosing new, disparate solutions and operating models may deliver some short-term gain but may ultimately add more complexity and risk to your IT ecosystem unless there is a clearly defined convergence strategy. Kovarus’ “back-to-basics” approach helps you “mind the gap” and execute on a plan that will deliver your IT department to an ITaaS operating model in a methodical, results-oriented manner.